Presidential primary season has put the practical effects of
the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens
United vs. the FEC on painful display. By removing contribution limits, the
decision has opened the floodgates to unprecedented
cash flow for elections. It has also given birth to new organizational
forms, as PACS morphed into SuperPACS, a new entrant into the already crowded
campaign finance landscape of 501 c 4s, PACS, 527s, campaign offices and party
coffers. According to data from the Center
for Responsive Politics, the early March numbers show a 234%
increase in spending so far in the 2012 election compared to the same point
in the 2008 cycle. Most surprisingly, it has positioned nonprofit
organizations, specifically 501 (c) 4 and (c) 6 social welfare organizations,
at the center of the money flow between donors and the offices their candidates
seek.

There is a great deal of discussion about what Citizens United means for elections,
campaign finance, and democracy. But what does it mean for the nonprofit
sector? This will be the topic of our second #ReCodeGood charrette, coming up
on March 20 at Stanford.

We are asking questions about the many possible ways the new
rules for political giving might shape the nonprofit, charitable landscape.
These include:

·Will the ability to make unlimited contributions
to elections change donor behavior? Will more donors seek to achieve certain
social outcomes by influencing elections through (c) 4 or (c) 6 nonprofits?
Will they draw against their “charitable” budgets to make these contributions?

·How will the constant drumbeat of media
attention to these political nonprofits affect public opinion of and trust in
other nonprofit organizations?

·How will calls for greater
scrutiny of politically engaged nonprofits affect the oversight of others?

·How will demands for donor disclosure in
political setting change age-old practice of charitable anonymity?

·How will we know any of the answers to the
above, given the current state of nonprofit and election disclosure rules?

Since January of this year, at least four states - Montana, Hawaii,
New Mexico and Vermont - have taken steps to counter the effects of the
Citizens United decision. In Montana,
a hundred year-old statute limiting corporate spending in elections, the Corrupt Practices
Act, was upheld by the State Supreme Court, setting up a potential test
case for Citizens United. The
legislatures of Hawaii and New
Mexico passed calls for a Constitutional Amendment to undo the decision and
states across
the country have revisited their existing rules on corporate spending and
disclosure since January 2010. In Vermont, citizens in 58 of 60 town meetings
held on “Town
Hall Day” approved non-binding resolutions to undo “corporate personhood.”

While enormous spending gets all the attention, the roles of
nonprofits and funders in both bringing the cases that resulted in Citizens United and responding to the
current reality on the ground has warranted much less discussion. The appellant
in the case, Citizens
United, is a 501 (c) 4 nonprofit with an associated 501 (c) 3, the Citizens United
Foundation. Nonprofit organizations and their funders have played a long
role in advancing the legal strategy as well as those arguments being used to
counter it. Corporate shareholders can (and are) seeking disclosure of
political expenditures, however, there is no analogous process for
nonprofit expenditures, as these organizations have no shareholders.

Participants at the March 20th charrette will include
nonprofit lawyers, legal scholars, experts in political transparency, experts
on nonprofit policy, and our special guest, Jane
Mayer of The New Yorker. On March
22, the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society is pleased to host Jane
Mayer in a public conversation with #ReCodeGood’s Rob Reich. Join us on campus
at the Stanford Law School, Room 290 – register here.

Philanthropy and the Social Economy: Blueprint 2015

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Why is this blog called Philanthropy 2173?

This is a blog about the future. The year 2173 seems sufficiently far enough in the future to give us some perspective. As sure as we are of ourselves now, talking about the future - and making philanthropic investments - requires that we keep a sense of modesty and humor about what we are doing. Philanthropy is for the long-term - for the year 2173.